The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1887-01-10
CHINESE LABoRERs.
The Reason No strikes Occur In Tho
Celestial Empire.


Dor element ever known in China. La
borers in China are content because
they do not lack employment. get what
they earn, and can support themselves
in a way that satisfies them upon what
they get. The lowest class of labor earns
in the cities 10 cents a day, and in the
agricultural districts where tho work
is harder and the hours of labor longer
20 cents. These are average figures.
Sometimes the very lowest class of la
borcrs earn as much rs Sl50 or 81 aday,
butthat is only when they carry people
on chairs, up to ancestral shrines or on
other business, into the mountains.
That is terribly hard work, for the car
riers are expected to go rapidly all day
long, and they should be well paid for
it. Artisans of all classes earn from 80
to 40 cents day. The carver and the
house painter have much esteemed &C.
equations that combine the utilitar.an
and artistic, and are enabled to earn as
much as 60 TO 20 cents day. No Ia
poring men in southern China, in the
regular pursuit of their avocalions, get
more than the latter figure, but in
northern China the wages are just
little higher. Those earnings seem
small to Americans, no doubt, but it
must be remembered that cent in Chi
ma goes as far us a dime here and a dime
in China buys as much rs dollar here.
In the light of that fact it will be read
lily understood that the Chinese labor
er's toll is well remunerated. If the
man who earns 30 or 40 cents n day
spends Is cents for his three meals he
will be as comfortably fed as is the
New Yorker who pays IS cents meal
He will not have the same things, to
be sure, but he will have what he APP
prcciatcs and wants. Many things
that the New Yorker has learned to re-
gard as necessities the Chinaman never
heard Of If he does know of their
existence, has no desire for them.
Vegetables are abundant excellent,
and cheap in China. Pork. which is
very low in price, is the universal meat,
although beef is eaten TO II considerable
extent in northern China. and good
deal of mutton is consumed. Beef and
mutton are not within the ordinary
reach of the common laborers, nor is
venison, which is raised in preserves
and looked upon as luxury, but pork
is cheap enough for all. Then, beyond
eating. the artisan finds an allowance
of five cents day sufficient to cover
his rent and clothing. Even if he has
a family. his thirty or forty cents day
will enable him to lay by something all
the time for old age, "rainy day." or
investment! And as the Chinaman is
by nature abstemious and frugal,
spending little in amusement and less
in dissipation, he saves his money as
few other toilers do. The great am
bition of his life is to own bit Of real
estate, and there are immense numbers
Of the artisan class who live in their
own houses.
Another thing that is Of still great
er potency in keeping content among
the toil,ng masses of China is that they
are to such vast extent their own
e employers. They have among them
no vast manufacturing concerns where,
or even thousands of men
in similar work, are all but
parts of gigantic machine, and sub
ject to the same conditions of existence,
with perhaps as equal hopelessness of
ever attaining any other position than
that of subordinate dependency. There
are very many thousands of men who
earn their living by some sort of
manual labor in China, who carry on
business on their own account, who
inherit their little business from line
of ancestors, and whose personalities
are representative of generations Of
contented workers. If individuals have
been so fortunate that the demand for
their work by reason of its excellence.
or cheapness or for any other reason
has come to exceed what they and their
can supply, they employ their
relatives. A mans children. grand
and nephews are not likely to
be i'll treated in the matter of employ
ment by him, or to organize
labor unions to protect them